Time: Synchronous or Chirotic?

Fresco from the east wing Palace of King Minos, Knossos (circa 1500 BC)

Here’s a short foray into the nature of time. I am no quantum physicist, but just like the rest of us, who aren’t required to be qualified meteorologists to know that its raining, I’ve been having a few days where the synchronicities are just piling up. I am thinking a great deal about Chiron, most probably in part because Uranus is currently applying to radix Chiron in my chart, which itself is within a few minutes or so of the Descendant, and the vertex, makes the closest major aspect in my astrology – an opposition to Uranus and is the only major body to evince a trine in my chart, from Neptune.

I want to apologise in advance for my astrovanity right now, it’s not something I usually do, but these are strange days for me for a lot of reasons (mostly to do with a Neptune square and a fast-approaching Uranus opposition).

And, it stands to reason then that the Uranus opposition also involves a conjunction of transiting Uranus to my natal Chiron, retrograde in Pisces in the 6th. As any student of Chiron will know this is identified by Hand-Clow as the signature of a healer; make of that what you will, there is no question that I have helped many hundreds of people over the years, mostly through astrology, to redefine their life’s purpose and heal their sense of isolation from the Universe. It is what it is and it is what I do. For this reason then, I am especially intrigued by the themes that Chiron plays out in my life, in no doubt the same way that a computer programmer is interested in the fortunes of Microsoft or a fisherman keeps a close watch on the weather forecast.

The Palace of Minos, Knossos

I have read a fair amount on Chiron over the last few years, but somehow – and I really cannot say exactly how – I always missed the fact that Chiron was closely associated with Minoan culture; he was an inhabitant of the mountains around Knossos, on the modern island of Crete and was an initiator of astrologers and magicians at the palace of Knossos: the same palace under which the legendary labyrinth was built to house the Minotaur. The culture of the Minoans was incredibly advanced and unreservedly idyllic in its basic tenets; the extensive frescoes and murals dotted about the enormous ruined city contain absolutely no scenes whatever of a militaristic nature; they show instead various peaceful activities, sports, games, flower picking and divination; the palace itself contains spacious, airy apartments with flush toilets and running water, and this was a thriving community of up to 8000 people some 15 centuries before the birth of Christ! Fascinating.

But actually I knew all this already, because I once visited Knossos and toured these very ruins, aged 12, just before Christmas 1980. It is a strange story; I was on a school expedition to visit Bethlehem on Christmas Day – that was down to my school situation, it was a partly charitable state boarding school, usually given to taking in the children of broken homes (at that time), and my family was in crisis, so off I went. Life was tough for me back then, but I got onto the trip to the Holy Land, and we were filled with the promise of seeing the birthplace of Jesus, which for me, at 12, seemed pretty cool. We flew to Yugoslavia, still behind the Iron Curtain in those days and boarded the SS Uganda which put out into the Mediterranean the next day and we sailed out of the Adriatic and straight into the worst storm that had hit the Med in a quarter century, with 45 foot waves. That is peaks, so the ship would just be thrown up out of a trough maybe 50, 60 70 feet upwards, before it would fall away from you, so you were momentarily weightless. I cannot tell you how terrifying it was, imagine a 12 hour roller-coaster ride devised by the devil and you’ll get the picture, Neptune was seriously pissed that night. Well, you know the saying, any port in a storm? The rudder had been so badly damaged that we limped to Crete and disembarked for repairs, and because it was going to take two days to fix, we got to tour the Palace of Minos and the home of Chiron of course.

Well, like any good astrologer, I just had to cast the chart for December 20th, 1980, at the Palace of Minos; it was around midday when we arrived there.

Minos, Dec 20th 1980 Midday, Crete.

I switched off all the aspects except for quintiles, but you can probably see the absolutely partile conjunction of Mercury with Neptune, itself quintile a half-degree conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, both of which form a Golden Yod to Chiron, which incidentally was in the sign of Taurus. Not bad considering that the Minoan culture was based entirely upon bull-worship and the palace is covered with murals of bull-jumping.

So, is that synchronous timing, Chirotic time, or does it have to do with the Mayan time codes, which seem somehow to make a calendar from the laws of synchronicity itself? Oh, and I really ought to mention that in this chart, technically; Chiron is Peregrine…

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